"Eddy came by helicopter, I come by Mini.'' That's how Julia Davison, the new boss of Australia's largest childcare chain, sums up the difference between her and her predecessor.

The vivacious British-born Davison is overhauling the former ABC Learning business founded by Eddy Groves which collapsed in 2008 with a $2 billion debt.

To break with the chain's controversial past she has rebranded it Goodstart Early Learning, referencing its new non-profit owners and the shift in focus to fostering childhood development rather than maximising profits.

Eddy Groves.

But still the ghost of the fast-living Groves and his McDonald's-style ''one size fits all'' approach to childcare looms large over Goodstart. ABC Learning was in the headlines again this week, with its former chief executive Martin Kemp on trial in a Brisbane court for breaching the Corporations Act in the company's dying days. Groves, who faces similar charges, is to stand trial later in the year.

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The fact that Groves still attracts more media coverage than Goodstart highlights the challenge Davison faces: can she convince parents the company, which looks after 72,000 children, really has changed for the better?

Davison, who joined Goodstart in March last year, doesn't like to spend much time talking about the Groves era. ''I've never met Eddy,'' she says. ''My goals, I think, are different … I don't know what the old ABC vision was, it felt like it was maximising returns for shareholders.''

Kylie Stevenson, who runs the flagship Goodstart centre in Indooroopilly in Brisbane's west, vividly recalls the old regime.

''It was like we were puppets - 'This is what you can and can't do,''' she says. ''There were very strict procedures and policies, head office said yes or no. We made no decisions as directors. It was all about the money.''

A standard eight-week menu which had to be served to every child at the 650 centres across the country on the same day, and opening hours were uniform, regardless of location. Staff had to call head office for permission to change even a light bulb.

Now directors are being given much more autonomy to decide what best suits the families at their particular centre. ''With Goodstart the barriers have come down,'' Stevenson says. ''There's no scariness, there's no reprimands. [Head office is] there to work with us, not against us. Now the centres are all for the children. The old company wasn't exactly like that.''

Davison was actually thinking about semi-retiring when the Goodstart job came up. After more than 25 years working in health (first in hospital administration in Britain, then heading up government agencies in South Australia), she took a year off to spend time with family and friends, and do all the things she'd been meaning to do for the last decade.

With a vineyard in the Barossa to tend with her Australian husband, Mark, vegetarian meals to cook, books to read, walking holidays and yoga retreats to plan, and a vibrant 80-year-old mother to visit in Britain, there was much to enjoy. But she felt she still had something to offer the corporate world.

''It became very clear to me part-way through that time that I wanted to do another CEO role,'' Davison says. ''I wasn't ready to semi-retire. If you're on boards you're not as connected to the people in the organisation. Whilst I like strategy, I actually like delivering change.''

But she also realised that if she was going to put in the long hours again, it had to be for a organisation she really believed in.

''When I heard that there was a job shifting [the former ABC] from a for-profit organisation - which didn't actually make a profit - to a mission-driven organisation with a vision to give Australian children the best possible start in life, that really appealed to me.''

Yet some Goodstart staff who spoke to The Sun-Herald on condition of anonymity say they haven't seen much change at work. Cost-cutting is still rife (some staff are paying for resources out of their own pockets), staffing levels are so stretched that centre directors have to cover to meet government-regulated staffing ratios, and draconian disciplinary procedures are still being enforced.

While they're impressed with Davison (whom many have met), and her plans for the business, disgruntled staffers say many long-serving middle managers are inculcated with the old ABC culture.

''Eddy Groves is gone, the CFO is gone, but everything else remains the same,'' one staff member said. ''These people have been brought up on a 10-year culture of keeping people in line, keeping things under wraps.''

Davison predicts it will take 10 years to turn Goodstart around. ''This is a huge cultural shift … Like any cultural change you will have some people who are not aligned with the new vision, who don't have the skills. It would be naive to say that's not the case.''

Staff turnover has already dropped from 30 per cent to 17 per cent. Goodstart is spending $10 million on staff training, and 2000 more staff are being hired, including an extra 500 university graduates. A new whistleblower system has also been introduced.

Mindful of the company's history of financial troubles, Davison describes her job at GoodStart as ''social purpose with a business discipline''.

Although critics say it is impossible to make money out of childcare on such a large scale because of the costly overheads, Davison points out that Goodstart has already paid back more than $30 million in debt and will generate a bigger operating surplus than the $5.6 million it recorded last year. It helps that as a registered charity it doesn't have to pay payroll tax for its 15,000 employees.

She has become a passionate advocate for the importance of the early years in a child's development. ''All the evidence says investing in the first five years makes a difference that lasts a lifetime. There is a job to be done here demonstrating that in an Australian context.''

Davison wants Goodstart to play a role in influencing government policy on early childhood. (She supports the new quality standards for childcare centres, which demand better staff/child ratios and higher qualifications.) She has recruited a panel of early childhood experts to advise on the Goodstart curriculum, including the respected Melbourne University professor Collette Tayler. The Australian Catholic University professor Deborah Harcourt has been appointed Goodstart's director of early learning and research.

As part of its mission to reach out to vulnerable children, Goodstart is piloting programs at centres in low socio-economic areas, such as The Smith Family's Let's Read program in Victoria, and is working with the South Australian Department of Education and Early Childhood Development and the Italian early learning expert Carla Rinaldi to improve the experiences of children at Goodstart centres.

Under Davison's leadership centre occupancy levels are growing everywhere but in Groves's home state of Queensland.

Davison knows it will take time to lay the ABC ghost to rest. Research she commissioned when she started at Goodstart revealed only 32 per cent of parents would enrol their child at an ABC Learning centre.

This jumped to 80 per cent when parents were told it was now owned by the charities Brotherhood of St Laurence, Mission Australia, The Benevolent Society and Social Ventures Australia. Hence the rebranding, which will be completed next month.

Research also showed three-quarters of parents feel anxious and guilty about putting their young children in childcare.

Davison, who worked as an au pair in Germany when she was a teenager, doesn't have children of her own. Asked how she would manage the ''mother guilt'' felt by many Goodstart clients, she replies: ''I would take advice on that. I'd listen to others, I'd read the research to learn about that.''